Black Badge Re-Audit

[PJ Hardtack]

Last week end I re-audited the IPSC Black Badge Course as required after an absence of more than two years. Even though I used to instruct it, I learned a few things and realized I had acquired a few bad habits.

My wife is already a competent SASS competitor and is slated for a BB course this coming May, and looking forward to it. She will be using her Ruger SR9 and it's such a 'new' design, our instructors couldn't answer some questions we had about the gun in IPSC. For example:

The gun is dripping with redundant safeties - a Glock-type 'trigger safety', a magazine disconnector safety and an ambi thumb safety.
She wanted to know if she would be required to use the frame mounted safety or if the trigger safety would suffice. This is not the most convenient design to operate and looks like a 'lawyer' safety overkill.

And the gun requires a mag in order to fire the striker - unless the mag safety is removed. Otherwise, you risk damage to the striker mechanism; so sayeth the destruction manual. She isn't keen on this (it's HER gun, OK?), so is she going to have to insert an empty mag to drop the striker or could she insert a loaded mag? That may seem odd, but after she has shown the chamber 'clear', there is no danger of an AD as she will be withdrawing the mag immediately under supervision.

She bought herself a Blade-Tech holster and mag pouches in PINK from "Packing In Pink", a Canadian outfit founded by Kim Page in Toronto, Ontario. This is an exclusive to PIP and you cannot order in pink from Blade-Tech. This is PINK to the point where you want sunglasses to look at it on a bright, sunny day!

When she bought her SR9, I told her to order extra mags and she did - two. I told her to buy at least two more. She went back on line and having heard that the SR9 is getting hard to find (ALL Rugers at the moment) and the prices are already starting to climb, she bought a second SR9! Considering the gun at $475 comes with two mags, (extra mags at $49.95 each), her rationale was that the new gun cost her only $375 and now she has six mags!

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry at this feminine logic, but I heartily approve. I do agree that the SR9 offers a lot of gun for the price, and I LOVE having a gun nut wife who wears pink & black as a fashion statement while kicking some male (_*_).

She was dismayed to read in the IPSC rules that she will be unable to have the slide of one SR9 Dura-Coated in pink and stay in "Production" class. She couldn't care less and is fine with being in "Classic". Her one word comment - "Anal."